She heard the words
several times repeated by him: "I will come soon, darling!" and the
simplicity of his devotion to her, unloved as he was, had such flavor of
pathos in it that the tears started to Vesta's eyes.
"Poor soul!" she said, "it will be long before I can love him. _There_,
his hunger must be enduring. But my duty is not the less clear to stay
by his side and nurse him, as his wife."
At this conclusion she looked Milburn over carefully, to see if any
wound or sign of violence, whether by accident or an enemy, appeared
upon him, and finding none, and he all the time wandering in his sleep,
she climbed the ladder and peeped into the garret, to see if his servant
might be there. Samson's bed, as she supposed it was, had not been
disturbed, and so, descending, she raised the window over the larger
door she had entered by, and beckoned Virgie to come up.
"Take this tin cup," she said to the quadroon, "and go to the spring,
near here, and bring it to me full of water."
Then, as the girl tripped away, Vesta found a piece of paper, and wrote
her father a note, telling him to come to her; and to the girl, when she
returned, her mistress said:
"I want you to get a roll of new rag-carpet at Teackle Hall, and have it
brought here, to spread upon this floor. Send me, too, a pair of our
brass andirons, and pack in a basket some glass, table-ware, and linen.
Tell papa to bring one of his own night-shirts, and to take down my
picture in the sewing-room, and wrap it up, and have it sent.
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